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Did NASA accidentally leave undiscovered life on Mars?

2021-10-11T10:36:47.021Z


NASA has been looking for traces of life on Mars for years. As one researcher suspects, however, life could have existed on the red planet for a long time.


NASA has been looking for traces of life on Mars for years.

As one researcher suspects, however, life could have existed on the red planet for a long time.

Washington / Kassel - The US space agency NASA has been researching life on Mars * for years.

But even if one day traces of living beings are discovered on the red planet, a researcher fears that these will not be extraterrestrial organisms.

Geneticist Christopher Mason told the BBC that NASA may have accidentally left terrestrial microbes on Mars in the past.

In the course of its Mars missions, the US agency sent around 30 spaceships and rovers to the planet.

Video: New NASA images could point to life on Mars

Mars: “Evolutionary selection process” in NASA laboratories could make life possible

That would actually be possible - despite extreme precautions on the part of NASA.

Because keeping a spaceship completely free of microorganisms is very difficult, said Mason.

According to him, there is even evidence that the red planet has already been contaminated with microbial life from the past Mars missions.

Maybe even with dangerous organisms.

Mars

radius

3,389.5 km

Distance from the sun

227,900,000 km

Orbital time

687 days

The clean rooms of the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) of NASA could be to blame for this, which inadvertently acted as a test field for terrestrial microbes.

According to Christopher Mason, an "evolutionary selection process" emerges in the JPL that produces the organisms "that would then have a greater chance of surviving a trip to Mars." Mason himself examined the JPL for DNA and discovered microorganisms that were present in the Able to attach to metal and withstand extreme cold and radiation.

Nasa: Earthly microbes on Mars - development could be dangerous

This development would be problematic because “new organisms can wreak havoc when they reach a new ecosystem,” says Mason.

It is therefore important to "guarantee the protection and preservation of every life that exists somewhere in the universe." Due to the new condition, it would be possible that the microbes transported from Earth to Mars mutate quickly.

Therefore, it is not unlikely that NASA would wrongly classify the organisms as extraterrestrial.

(Nail Akkoyun)

Most recently, scientists approached the question of whether humans could live on Mars with a study.

In addition, a ninth planet may have been discovered in the solar system.

* HNA is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-10-11

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